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“Edovlag was a revolutionary Coupogian!” Their tour guide crowed out, her shrill voice nearly vibrating the air inside their little, cramped shuttle. “He was the first of our kind to find the magnificent things we now get to share will all of you, galaxies wide!”
Rose had gotten better at not laughing at the names of alien peoples and things, but Coupog had been a hard one and with each mention she had to stifle a giggle, The Doctor giving her his half-stern look which rarely ever lasted before melting into an amused grin.
“You see, Edovlag was out in his yard, searching for the left slipper that Ol’ Scavit had stolen,” The woman explained, waving out towards the iron statue of a man of in his bath robe, one slipper in hand, and a sort of dog esque creature stood. The statue itself shimmered and shook, almost as if it had its own resonance. “He was one of the first settlers here, a refuge from Plaginistanioroxas, and no one had dug around in the soils just yet!”
“Plag…” Rose began and shook her head, blonde streaks smacking across her shoulders with a soft whiffing sound, “no, not even going to try.”
“It’s not even hard, Rose!” The Doctor chided with a grin, repeating the name in three fast whispers, to which Rose elbowed him until they both fell into giggles and snickers.
“So!” The tour guide spoke, voice breaking louder through the quiet chatter of the bus, nearly grating as the tires scraped across the sandy landscape. “He thought it was cool, but he was quickly in for a surprise when he found out what it could really do!”
As they traveled around a lurching bend, everyone near falling from their seats, she gestured over towards a display case. It was large, magnifying the maybe palm sized rock via holograms a few feet away, making it unavoidable to anyone in the area. The rock glowed vibrant green, shivering slightly. “It changed hues around juveniles! But better, it changes via mood!”
As if to demonstrate this point, a young child Rose hadn’t even noticed until that moment, stepped towards the display case. Immediately the stone inside, and all surrounding holograms, scorched a bright orange, flaring up into something bright enough that they actually had to briefly shield their eyes.
“See! Magnificent!” The guide squeaked out, somehow getting more nasal the more her fake enthusiasm skyrocketed. “Which is exactly why Edovlag couldn’t keep this beauty to himself!”
The shuttle took off down a steeper hill, sliding everyone around ungracefully in their seats, bumping around like hell’s turbulence. As they descended, the quarry came into sight, now mostly piles of dirt and rusted out equiptment Rose swore she could smell.
“In an attempt to share these riches with all who come to Coupog, Edovlad opened the first quarry and then soon after the various shops you can see on your way out, and later we opened this museum to honor him!”
Another passenger, a pink alien whose eyes were like a snake and whose fingers reminded Rose of gnarled tree roots, raised it’s hand.
“Yes! Mx…” The tour guide paused, squinting at the hastily scribbled manifest of their group, “Ka’alg! What is it?”
The voice that slithered from the throat of the alien was like sludge, slow and lumbering, but thick enough that the syllables had to be strained to be found, “Are all the rocks here special? Why not just… blow it all up and sell every last scrap?”
Laughter, sharp and quick, burst from the guide’s lips, “Oh, no! Not every piece here is a gem! We’ve found all sorts of interesting ones that I will highlight momentarily, but mostly they are average. Anyways! Why would we ever waste such a perfect opportunity to share and to invite others to look at natural beauty? Destruction is overrated!”
Someone in the far back, that The Doctor had been keeping too close of an eye on, muttered something about environmentalist pigs, but no one reacted outwardly and instead the tour guide mused onwards as they finally began the ascent away from the quarry and back up to the final bits of the tour before the packed markets and shops.
“So, some of our most interesting finds include: a baby blue stone that has a near constant humming lullaby, a gradient of rainbows scattered across a rock that shift order depending on the minerals nearby, and one that even predicts the weather via its own conditions.”
“How does that work??” A grey fish-like being asked, head in a small tank that gurgled and lurched repeatedly, causing the face to shrink and enlarge with the movement and to waft the scent of seafood around it.
“Quite easily! The outside of the surface is cold when it will be cold out, hot when hot outside, wet when it will be rainy, etc..”
“Sounds like a rock to me.” The anti-environmentalist muttered, beginning to sound more like a kid forced on a school trip than someone who had paid for the tour.
“Some people do think it’s just a rock. The time difference between its changes and the weather occurrence are minute. But real believers understand.” The tour guide argued, keeping her face polite, teeth nearly sparkling as she grinned like a shark. Clearly, she heard everything.
Thankfully, for the passengers and the guide, the tour ended with one final screeching halt, jolting them all into one another with head banging and cries of surprise.
“That’s it for the tour! We really hope that you’ve enjoyed it and you’ll find everything you could ever hope for down in the bazaar!” She waved them all off the shuttle with haste, tapping each of their backs as they went.
The Doctor and Rose were some of the first off the steps, immediately falling into the flow of people heading down the cobblestone path to the many stalls ahead.
“Which do you want to see first? The stalls or the proper gift shop?” The Doctor questioned, pointing off towards a dome shaped building that had a sign so big and so glittery it could probably be read back on Earth if someone squinted right.
Rose considered this for a moment before deciding that it would be best to do the market stalls first. After all, The Doctor loved a little shop and would probably go a bit ham once inside. It’d be easier to take her time out here. “Let’s do the stalls first!”
“Allons-y!” The Doctor jubilated and encapsulated her hand to begin their trek.
The first few stalls all held Coupog merchandise. T-shirts with the planet smattered across it, the words “It Rocks!” In neons bright enough to make you blink, maps of the best places to try and dig up your own treasures, and handmade trinkets and items from hopeful merchants trying to get their own products out into the world. They stopped at each one and looked, but beyond a quick purchase of a traffic cone colored shirt declaring how much Coupog rocked, they didn’t purchase much.
The next stalls were the real hits. Clearly, because each one was crowded, a sea of creatures surrounding their victims, shop sellers screaming out prices and the scent of a million packed in bodies, and dust kicking up off the ground. Rose felt a rush at all the activity and dragged The Doctor down into the miasma.
The first stall they managed to shove their way up to was creaking against the wind, older, and clearly well loved. The aged man who sat there looked human, deep creases in his face, and a hand crocheted hat on his head. “Hello! Hello! Hello! What can I interest you all in today?”
“What’s the most interesting thing you’ve got?” The Doctor replied, the gleam in his eye proof enough he was interested.
“Ah! A man of excellent taste!” The seller appraised and immediately reached to the shelf below the top of his stall, hidden beneath rows of opalescent blue and green crystals. He fished out what looked like an eyeball, a sea of reds and yellows and oranges as the sclera, a black iris set in the center. He held it up proudly, smirking. “This is my prize possession.”
“Oooh…” The Doctor slipped on his glasses and immediately held out his hand, holding it gingerly in his fingers, face crowded close enough to Rose’s that they could both smell the Bapfetian spices they’d had on their pasta on the shuttle over from the main city.
“It… looks like an eye. Is it?”
“No…Not quite.” The Doctor explained, voice low in the way it often went when he was mesmerized by something fascinating. The sonic screwdriver came out for a split second, a quick buzzing and a blip and then it was returned to his pocket. “It’s just a stone, made of compressed minerals and sediment…but it’s giving off a low level psychic feed.”
The man nodded, briefly pulling their attention, “If you look at it long enough it will shift to look like the eyes of the one you think of. Go on!! try it!”
The pair glanced at one another before Rose shrugged and returned her gaze to the eye in The Doctor’s palm, staring it down like it had wronged her. Slowly, like a lava lamp shifting, it slid and morphed until it was a flat sort of brown color, barely more than a single shade. Rose startled and took a half step back.
“Quite the show, isn’t it?” The merchant cried, grinning and he snatched it back quickly. “Not for sale.”
“Ah, a pity.” The Doctor dropped his hand back to Rose’s and gently led her away. “You alright?”
Rose nodded, face a bit flushed, out in the heat of the sun with so many bodies around her. It definitely wasn’t out of embarrassment for reacting so strongly to compressed dirt. “I’m good.”
The Doctor accepted her at her word and hustled her over to the next booth, securing them a spot near the edge, overlooking as someone took large chunks of sedimentary rocks and hammered them down into crumbles. There was debris spread out across the area, the top of the table, and all the way out into the lanes, kicked by passing patrons. Besides the large chunks were small gemstones, some resembling things seen on Earth, and some in shapes so complex they seemed nearly impossible.
“Let us see what is innerside of the rockes home!” The waif of a person near shouted, trying to speak about the sound of their own hammering on the rock.
Bits and pieces fell and scattered around, the person continuing to mumble in a tongue too low for Rose to hear or the Tardis to translate for her. Finally, after a good three minutes of jackhammering, a twisted up bundle of purples tumbled out, looking like hardened string, tangled and knotted and shining despite the dust that was settled on it.
“Another!!” The person cried and set it with the pile of others, returning quickly to the attack of the now sizably smaller chunk of stone. They seemed more interested in the task of destroying than discovering and selling, so the pair made eye contact and hurried off to a different booth.
Sizzling loudly, a bed of smooth coals lay, pluming up smoke and scents so intermingled it was impossible to tell whether it was sweet, savory, or both. “Try a Coupog delicacy!” The woman, a near copy of their tour guide, shrilled out and shoved a scalding rock into both of their hands, small chunks of something glistening and thick set on top.
Without a thought, they each popped some into their mouths, bouncing around their hands to keep from burning fingers. It was decadent, an explosion of flavor. It was like eating a fifteen course meal in one single bite. The only downside was a very… earthy, dusty after flavor that lingered on the tongue and dried out their mouths.
Thankfully, the next swarmed booth offered fizzing sodas with rocks inside that somehow were slowly melting into what the stall owner called “Edible Lavas.” It was like swallowing a boba, but it burned something fierce down your gullet, tasting oddly of saltwater. Somehow, it was still refreshing.
One by one they hunted down each booth, weaving in and out of the currents of shoppers and stopping to look at everything they can. Rose picked a single rock to buy, one that even she had to admit wasn’t all that special, no powers or anything.
“Why that one? Of all the rocks and crystals on this entire planet, why that one?” The Doctor finally asked, eyes stuck on the pale thing in her hand.
The smile lighting up her face made it worth the question alone. “My mum will love it.” It was as simple as that, really. And she would, The Doctor knew. It was basically just a rock, hand painted by a few of the kids jostling about. It was a patchy white background with goofy little flowers in pastel colors, very hippy. Jackie would adore the stupid thing.
“Besides,” Rose began, fixing her timelord with a look, “It isn’t like you’ve bought anything!” She spun about, arms splayed wide, people moving around her like she was nothing more than an obstacle, bouncing off of both of them with practiced ease. “We came all the way to the planet of geology and you haven’t even considered buying anything! Not even the one that looked like the Dragon Tales stone!”
“First of all, it’s a dragon scale. Secondly, I’ve met a few too many dragons to feel comfortable purchasing their scales from secondhand sellers.” He argued calmly, the weight of his purchases in his pocket remaining hidden.
Rose rolled her eyes with a laugh, “And yet, somehow, you still haven’t shown me any dragons!”
“I told you I would!” The Doctor indignantly corrected, face scrunched, hands on his hips, “I told you that Carl was off visiting his mother and once he returned to Spedivifours we’d go and meet him! He makes a mean cup of chili!”
“Time Machine.” Rose argued calmly, walking backwards through the crowd, disorienting the doctor as she spun in circles around him until he was the one walking with his back to the flow of traffic.
“Patience!” He retaliated, trying to tug her to his side to make their walk easier.
“As if you’ve got any of that to spare!” She accused, spinning off and down into the heart of the crowd which was beginning to taper off towards the entrance of the massive shop. So much for little shop.
“So little time, so much to do,” The Doctor joked, an inside thing the two had started in an attempt to wipe away his pain at the difference in their lifespans.
“So much to do, so little space.” Rose replied in a sing song, twirling off towards the roaring fountain where the majority of patrons where either taking photos or attempting to wash their finds from the customer friendly quarry field.
The Doctor laughed and was glad she didn’t notice how hollow it sounded, instead, slipping off towards the door of the shop where ice cold air blasted out each time the automatic doors squealed their way open. “Time to go inside?”
Rose finally turned and looked at the fluorescently lit building, eyes still glowing with the wonder that they always did when they were somewhere new. “Yes.”
The Doctor casually dropped her hand, smiling at her and waving her inside. “I’ll meet you in there. Go inside and buy yourself the silly little panning kit.”
“You’re a silly little panning kit!” Rose retorted petulantly but grinned and scampered inside to get her reward, leaving her companion outside in the sunshine beside the building, the grass brushing at his ankles.
The moment he was out of her eyesight he stumbled off to the side of the building, dropping to his knees as his body was wracked with violent shivers. It felt like his head was on fire, everything swirling around like he was trapped inside a painful whirlpool.
He was usually so good at this. It came with years of practice, but he had let it slip during the years he was alone, and somedays there was just no grip.
Everything today had been overstimulating. The noises, the smells, the tastes. As a time lord he was already more keyed into things than a human, could tell the year and planet by the hum on the breeze and the amount of sulfur in the air. Throw in the fact that, at all times, the time vortex swayed inside of his mind, alighting his mind with a fire no one else could quite contain, he was always on the edge. Typically, it was the edge of brilliance. Somedays…it was the edge of an ending.
Today, he’d held on to the fraying cords of his sanity and tried to keep it together. He was with Rose and he wanted to have a good day. There was a plan. He had a plan. The weight in his suit jacket reminded him of that, the subtle clacking of gems together, the scent of damp earth clinging to his nostrils. It just didn’t seem to be enough to combat the overstimulation, the breaking point he was quickly approaching, and suddenly… He couldn’t breathe.
Gasping for air against lungs that refused to work, The Doctor choked and writhed against the ironically brick wall. He sank his knees further into the single muddy patch of grass and dragged his hands to his hair to yank, to try and find something to ground him to this one particular moment in time so he wouldn’t get lost in every other that had ever and would ever exist.
It was barely tolerable, out here, still so close to so many other minds. That was what had truly been the tipping point. He was good, so careful, about keeping telepathic links closed. But being so close to others, it overwhelmed him, made it near impossible to keep it all out. It trickled in, seeping slowly into his mind, adding to the mess of everything else.
The Doctor was just managing to pull it all together, planning to swoop Rose away for a quiet night in the Tardis and give her the presents tomorrow when he could properly function again when it all fell apart, shattering like the sedimentary rock had earlier.
A Good Samaritan saw him, crouched and all but sobbing, and stopped over to check in. No good deed ever goes unpunished, as they say, but they never do state who gets punished now do they?
“Hey, man! You alright?” The young guy asks. Human, visiting, the scent of synthesized atmosphere hanging onto his clothes like a bad cologne.
The Doctor doesn’t reply, breathing shallowly, hoping this man will wander off and he will scrape himself up and be able to be alright.
Instead, the do gooder does what do gooders do. He reaches a hand down and grasps the time lords shoulder, tight, pulling him into what should be the present. Instead, it’s everything. The stranger’s entire time stream on display from bloody birth to peaceful last breaths, going so fast it’s like watching a program on a hundred speed.
A gasp, a crack, and screams.
The windows behind him shatter, the precious loot in his pocket all but disintegrates to dust, and he can feel the entire world shift on a small axis, everything titled just a tad as his special brand of energy reaches out and vibrates.
“Holy—“ The passerby screams and leaps backwards, the ground cracked beneath his feet, not quite open, but not safe.
“S-sorry…” The Doctor grunts, hand digging into the dust now in his pocket. A sharp pain to his chest. All that work and planning and he’d ruined it.. Ruined it all by being too frenzied to keep up with his own overstimulation.
Feet stampede past, people running, calling out fears of an attack, of a solar flare ending them all. It makes his head bang louder.
This is his fault. It’s all his fault. And he has to fix it. He has to fix the rocks in his pocket and the little shop that isn’t so little and stop the fear from gripping all these people —-
and without any intent to do so, The Doctor grabs. He yanks onto the frantic fabric of time and tugs with all of his might. Just a few seconds. Just a minuscule amount of time to fix his rash of mistakes.
It’s disorienting, like being thrown on a seesaw that you can’t reach the ground of. Everything is tangled for a brief moment, the entire blanket of reality stretched and tearing and.. weaving itself back together.
The passerby is walking over again, mouth open to ask if he is alright. The Doctor hops up, stomach sick, skin slick with a sheen of sweat so thick he is sure he’ll be able to peel it off like a glove. “I’m fine! Dandy! Super duper alrighty-o. Thank you thank you thank you!” He rushes out, pepping around to prove his point, looking more like a seasick madman.
The stranger grimaces, gets the hint of fear in his eyes and smiles strangely. “Sure, sir. Whatever you.. say…” And off he runs, back to the family who had been waiting at the steps to the nearby house turned museum, back to the wife who will die in a freak accident in six months and the kids he will father alone but father well.
The Doctor heaved back against the wall, trembling again.
“What have I done?…” He mumbled to himself, staring at his hands as if they’d show any evidence of the crimes he’d committed.
“What did you do?” Rose asked, suddenly beside him, startling him out of his own mind.
“Oh, uh, I….” he trailed off, unsure how to lie, so fraught and lost.
“I can feel it. Something's off. It’s like the wind shifted or something. What happened?” Rose had her serious face on, the one she used when she was speaking with survivors of terrible occurrences or when she told Mickey to stop leaving the empty crisp packets in the pantry.
The Doctor only stared, unable to speak, unable to explain the horrors of what he’d done.
Her face softened slightly, closer to the Rose face that meant she was speaking with someone utterly frightening. “Whatever it is, I’m here. It’s okay. We’ll work it out.”
Pushing a sigh out past pursed lips, The Doctor collapsed into a pile of limbs on the ground. “I just broke the biggest law of my people.”
“What’s that, never be late?” She joked, quirking a half smile he couldn’t reciprocate. “Okay…Bad time for a joke. My bad.”
He sighed, hanging his head into his hands. “I’ve broken all our laws, over time…. Never interfere, never interact with yourself, never cross into established events… But I would never break this one… the biggest one… and yet… I just did.”
“Well… we all have our rebellious phase,” She tried, slumping beside him, the tips of their shoes touching. “I stole some stuff when I was fifteen. We’ve all been there. You’re just hitting your stride a little late, is all. It’s alright, Doctor.”
“It isn’t.” He bemoaned, unable to look her in the eyes.
“Why?” She pressed, shoulder now rubbing against his, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I could’ve entirely collapsed the fabric of reality and caused the end of all things.”
“Well… You didn’t. So. That’s what matters, yeah?”
The Doctor lifted his head to meet her eyes, not believing her levity, but her face held strong. Rose truly meant what she was saying. It hadn’t happened, so things could still be fixed. That is genuinely what she felt.
Why The Doctor was shocked, he wasn’t sure. She’d always been the good parts of him. All his companions were… it’s why he picked them.
“Next time, you don’t do it. You work on it. Find something else to fix whatever was going on…. which,” she paused, eyebrows furrowing in the way they did when she was suddenly unsure, “what was going on?”
More air whooshed out of The Doctor’s lungs and he dropped his head back against the wall, eyes up on the endless turquoise sky above. “I got overwhelmed with all the sensory input and the telepathic and psychic stimulation and my energy burst and broke a lot of things… So.. I panicked and tried to fix it by yanking on the fabric of time and dragging us all back a few seconds.”
“Like…with your bare hands?” Rose sounded impressed.
“Well, sort of. It’s more… like with my own life force and stuff…but…yeah. Similarly.”
“Okay… But that’s so cool!” She squeaked and then quickly shook it off, softening herself again. “Okay. So. You got overstimulated and that led to an outburst which led to a really bad fix. Bandaid meet bullet hole, yeah?”
All The Doctor could do was nod.
Rose shrugged, as if nothing in the world was a problem, “Simple. Next time, we get out before it gets that bad! You just have to tell me next time.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but he was cut off.
“I will have just as much fun sitting quietly in the Tardis and doing alien crosswords as I will running around Coupog looking at overpriced lumps of dried up dirt.”
Rocks. Right. The Doctor suddenly frowned deeper, diving into his left pocket and pulling out the three he’d bought, thankfully mostly still intact.
“You did buy some!! I knew you couldn’t resist!” Rose hollered victorious, dropping her volume when she saw him wince. “Sorry. Can I see?”
He dropped the load into her open palms, refusing to look as she inspected them. The first was a black, polished rock, a perfect constellation set twinkling inside of it. The second, a mirror, a perfectly reflective gem that gleams your image back, warm and happy. The final one is the only one to sustain damage, too little energy left to fix it after reverting everything else he’d damaged in his mini explosion.
It was a rock, shaped similar to a heart, gleaming in yellows, pinks and browns. The crack ran right down the center, jagged and exposing blue insides that broke the rock into distinct sections.
“Why this?” Rose asked, correctly guessing the last one was not special like many of the rocks on this planet, but just a plain old pretty thing.
The Doctor shrugged, still refusing to look at her. “You’re all pink and yellow.” He replied, quoting something he’d said to her earlier in their friendship.
“And you’re… sort of brown.” She correctly guessed, beaming so wide he could hear it in her tone.
“So I am.”
With no warning, Rose was abruptly all but on top of him, smothering him with a hug. “You’re a right idiot.”
“Am I?” The Doctor asked, face smushed against the fabric of her shirt, hands instinctively gripping into the material as he held onto her.
“You are. Because this is wonderful.”
“It’s broken,” he reminded her gently, glumly.
Rose pulled back to make direct eye contact with him, “And it is still perfect. We are all a little broken, hm?”
The Doctor shrugged a bit, unsure what to say. Rose only smiled. She stood up, offering a hand which he gratefully took.
“Come on. Let’s go back to the Tardis and I’ll find a place of honor for this thing! Everyone needs to see it!”
He laughed a little, still stilted, but the first since she’d found him. It was a win, even if small. “You’re the only one that will ever see it.”
“No! You’ll see it! And anyone else we pick up along the way. It’s a giant “Rose and The Doctor were here” sign. It’s perfect. It needs a spot of honor!” Rose argued, beginning to lead him away from the crowds and out towards the field they’d parked their ship in.
“We’re always there!” He laughed, a little more lightly now, following her.
“And we always will be with this masterpiece!” Rose grinned, holding the gemstone up triumphantly like it was a trophy, a sight to behold, and not a damaged nugget of minerals.
The Doctor smiled, liking the sound of it, and eased into listening to Rose’s hundred ideas on the perfect place to put the silly little trinket.